SOON to open a third office in Asia-Pacific and making its debut appearance at PATA Travel Mart this year, Lowcostbeds is scaling up its presence in Asia to move away from being solely a UK brand towards becoming a global entity.
The bed bank planted its flag in the region through its office in Bangkok, where it is headquartered, and Sydney within the last one year.
Said Adam Alford, managing director Asia Pacific, Lowcostbeds, on the new direction: “We have opened two offices this year and plan to open a third in a few months. Our business is heavily geared towards our international expansion as we become less known as a UK bed bank (but) more a global business.”
He noted that the company’s UK business now constitutes less than 30 per cent of total business, compared to more than 80 per cent 18 months ago. Lowcostbeds has forecasted its growth rate to triple for 2015.
“We are committed to opening up Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. From a distribution point we are not identifying a single target market but rather expanding to markets where our products are welcome. For example, we have increased our total inventory by over 200 per cent since August last year. We have buyers in Asia now targeting individual contracts for best pricing to sell to more than 40,000 of our travel partners worldwide.”
But how does this bed bank ensure it stands out from the competition, amid a proliferation of other B2B websites and even peer-to-peer vacation rental channels each out for a bite of the accommodation market?
Read more in TTG-PATA Travel Mart Show Daily
